Chapter 304 : The Living Battery
Chapter 304: The Living Battery
Woooooooom—!
The sound coming from the ceiling was incredibly irritating.
When he looked up, he saw a gigantic ventilation fan, easily over one hundred meters in diameter, spinning at considerable speed.
Something that enormous couldn't possibly move without making a tremendous amount of noise.
He turned his head and looked elsewhere.
This time, what entered his sight was a transparent prison nearly identical to the one confining him.
Inside it, dozens of operating tables were lined up in perfect rows.
Between them, thousands of mechanical arms and drones busily moved about.
Shhhh—
As he continued watching, a human figure suddenly materialized on one of the empty operating tables.
Though calling it "human" was rather questionable.
To begin with, its entire visible torso was made of machinery.
And every single one of them was in a horrific state.
Most had half their bodies severed, broken limbs, or missing body parts altogether.
At first glance, they looked like soldiers who had barely retreated alive after suffering a crushing defeat on the battlefield...
Or victims of catastrophic accidents.
He was certain they were dead.
Yet contrary to his expectations, the mechanical arms busily began treating them.
-Confirming Vital Signs.
-Loss Rate: 89%.
-Checking compatible replacement parts.
-Inventory confirmed: 5,591 units.
-Beginning operation.
The moment the patient—whether Ninja, wounded soldier, or corpse—was transferred onto the table, the automated mechanical arms immediately began surgery.
In the blink of an eye, they tore away shattered arms, split open abdomens to dismantle mechanical organs, and disassembled crushed heads.
Tightening screws.
Welding joints.
Checking electrical signals.
Connecting component after component.
Every mechanical arm carried out its impossibly complex and delicate task with flawless precision and astonishing speed.
Those who had lost an arm received a new one.
Those whose lower bodies had been severed were fitted with replacement lower halves.
Those whose heads had been crushed received newly manufactured mechanical replica brains.
From diagnosis...
To the completion of surgery...
The average time required was only three seconds.
As soon as the procedures were complete, the patients vanished once again, instantly transported somewhere else as though they had never been there to begin with.
"……."
The Dragon, Dwindrog, slowly closed his eyes.
He could feel mana constantly flowing out of his body without pause.
When he concentrated on sensing its flow, it appeared to be transmitted through this cage toward the operating room on the opposite side.
'They're stealing my mana.'
Every process within that automated operating room was powered by electricity generated from converting his mana.
The realization filled Dwindrog with indescribable humiliation.
Only a short time ago...
He had been subjected to biological experiments.
His flesh had been torn apart.
His eyelids ripped open.
The dignity of a Dragon...
The King of [Mystics].
The sovereign of countless dimensions.
It had long since fallen into the dirt.
Now he had been reduced beyond a mere laboratory rat...
He was nothing more than a living battery.
'I'll kill them......!'
He didn't know when.
But mortals lived short lives.
Surely...
Within a few hundred years...
This pain.
This humiliation.
Would finally end.
If he could just endure until then...
'......Can I really endure that?'
Live like this...
For centuries?
Slowly having his soul eroded inside this endless hell...
Until even his pride as a Dragon was completely worn away?
Most importantly...
The true culprit behind all of this.
Would the Sky Dragon...
And the Stingray bloodline...
Still be alive by then?
Of course...
This world possessed anti-aging surgery.
Perhaps they would.
But conversely...
As long as they remained alive...
There was little point in hoping to escape this place.
And...
'Even if I returned by then......'
Everything would already be gone.
The streets preserved within his memories.
The people he remembered.
Perhaps even the very desire to return...
Along with those memories...
Would fade until nothing remained but dust.
'I want to go home......'
His soul cried out once more.
Its voice overflowing with despair.
He no longer cared about revenge.
'Please... just let me return.'
His human ego and his Dragon ego repeatedly collided...
Cracked apart...
Then fused together once more.
Seeking even a momentary escape from the mental agony, he tried to fall asleep.
Wiiiiiiiiiiing—!
But between the irritating roar of the ventilation fan and the ceaseless sounds of the mechanical arms in the automated operating room...
Sleep refused to come.
If only he could still use magic...
He would silence every one of those unbearable noises.
With resentment filling his eyes, he glared once more toward the operating room.
He swung his tail with all his might, attempting to shatter the glass cage imprisoning him.
But once again...
His struggle merely became electrical energy through the cage's energy-conversion system.
"Damn it."
A low growl escaped between his sharp fangs.
How wonderful it would be...
If only he could smash every last one of those cursed machines.
Then...
He noticed something strange.
For only the briefest instant...
A peculiar shape appeared in the operating room across from him.
It lasted only a fraction of a second.
But it could not escape a Dragon's overwhelming Dynamic Vision.
Another patient had just been transported in.
A dimensional rift opened just wide enough for one person.
From within it...
A corpse slowly emerged onto one of the operating tables.
Its head had been completely crushed.
Back when he had been human...
Simply looking at such a sight would have made him vomit.
Apparently even this world's technology considered it impossible to restore the original head.
The mechanical arms immediately decided to replace it.
They retrieved a mechanical replica brain from storage.
Implanted it into the skull.
Covered it with synthetic facial muscles and armor.
Then connected the cobalt-alloy spine and cervical nerves...
Bringing the dead back to life.
The entire procedure required roughly two seconds.
A task that would have taken human surgeons several hours...
Was completed in only two.
Having been revived as though nothing had happened...
The corpse disappeared through another dimensional rift just like all the others.
However...
That wasn't what concerned Dwindrog.
The moment the corpse had first arrived...
For the briefest instant...
He had seen something...
Strange.
'...What was that?'
Within the dimensional rift...
Something resembling a black curtain writhed alongside the corpse.
Like tentacles searching desperately for prey...
It stretched outward in every direction.
Of course...
It had lasted for less than a second.
The moment the rift closed...
It disappeared.
Because of that...
Even though Dwindrog had clearly witnessed the black curtain with his own eyes...
He briefly wondered whether he had imagined it.
But...
He hadn't.
Beginning with that corpse...
Every single time a corpse or wounded patient was transported into the operating room...
He caught fleeting glimpses of that same black curtain.
Taking advantage of every moment the dimensional rift remained open...
It desperately stretched out its arms...
As though trying to grab something.
The movement resembled someone blindly reaching into a sealed box whose interior couldn't be seen.
"……??"
For Dwindrog...
Who had spent all this time staring at the same unchanging scenery...
It was an unexpectedly fascinating development.
He began wondering...
What exactly those tentacle-like things were searching for.
And what would happen...
If they ever succeeded.
He continued watching.
A rift opened.
Tentacles reached out.
A patient was transported.
The rift closed.
The tentacles were severed.
Major surgery finished in the blink of an eye.
The patient was transported away again.
In less than ten minutes...
Hundreds of times...
The tentacles repeatedly searched for something.
And repeatedly failed.
Then...
"Oh......?"
A tentacle emerging from one of the dimensional rifts near the far corner...
Finally succeeded in touching the tip of one mechanical arm.
The contact lasted less than one-tenth of a second.
But...
It had definitely made contact.
That was where everything began.
The slender mechanical arm touched by the black tentacle suddenly stopped moving...
As though its power had been cut.
Of course...
Each operating station possessed thousands of mechanical arms.
Only one had failed.
Ordinarily...
That shouldn't have mattered.
Yet...
Dwindrog could clearly tell.
'The operation...... slowed down......!'
The difference was too small to measure in whole seconds.
Compared to normal...
Perhaps only around 0.01%.
If an operation normally required three seconds...
The delay amounted to only 0.0003 seconds.
An error so insignificant that paying attention to it seemed foolish.
Yet...
Just as a single speck of invisible dust could destroy a computer's circuitry...
Or a single drop of water falling upon a calm lake could create enormous ripples...
Everything began changing.
Because the treatment process became ever so slightly slower...
Patients returned to the battlefield ever so slightly later.
As a result...
Casualties increased by an equally tiny amount.
More wounded were transported into the operating room.
More dimensional rifts opened.
The tentacles gained more opportunities to disable additional mechanical arms.
More mechanical arms failed.
Operations slowed further.
Patients returned later.
Casualties increased again.
The tentacles stretched out once more.
More mechanical arms stopped functioning.
At first...
One.
Then...
Two.
After that...
Four.
Then...
Eight.
As the number of casualties increased...
The number of broken mechanical arms grew exponentially.
What had initially been a delay of less than one-tenth of a second...
Soon exceeded an entire second.
Then...
Several dozen seconds.
"Ughhhhh......!?"
As dimensional rifts opened more and more frequently...
Massive quantities of mana were drawn from Dwindrog's body.
The operating room had detected the anomaly and initiated self-repair procedures...
Demanding even greater amounts of energy.
But once the ripple had begun...
It could no longer be stopped.
Like an avalanche.
Or an epidemic.
It spread exponentially.
The countless mechanical arms...
One after another...
Stopped moving like victims of a deadly disease.
Before long...
The entire operating room began shutting down.
-Abnormality. Abnormality. Ab...... nor...... mal......
-System operation below 30%......
-Recovery impossi...... ble......!
The lights illuminating the operating room began flickering out.
The mechanical arms twitched...
Then drooped lifelessly toward the floor.
They resembled the withered branches of an enormous dead wisteria tree hanging limply downward.
Eventually...
The operating tables could no longer accommodate the casualties.
Corpses piled atop corpses.
The impact shook the remaining mechanical arms.
The entire operating room degenerated into a massive pit of bodies.
Only then...
Did Dwindrog stop losing mana.
The monster that had greedily devoured his mana...
Had died.
"...What... just happened?"
He stared in astonishment at the incomprehensible phenomenon.
Then—
KABOOOOOOOOOM—!
A dimensional gate burst open.
Someone crashed directly into the mountain of corpses inside the operating room.
No...
"Flew into" would have been a more accurate description than "fell."
One man was pinning another down by the throat.
The impact alone cracked the walls of the operating room.
Fragile mechanical arms rained onto the floor.
Blood splattered in every direction.
And then—
[It's finally over.]
A familiar voice echoed from beyond the operating room.
A blood-soaked man slowly rose from the center of the corpse pit.
He let out an exhausted breath.
[Hoo......]
Golden eyes gleamed within the darkness.
Then...
Those eyes turned toward Dwindrog.
He recognized them immediately.
"Y-You......!?"
[So this is where you've been, Dragon.]
The man, wearing an exhausted expression, spoke words Dwindrog had never expected.
[I've come to rescue you.]